Barwell Motorsport challenges for double victory in Le Mans Aston Martin Festival race

Barwell Motorsport is renewing its historically successful association with the Aston Martin Racing marque this season, as it challenges for success in both the GT3 and GT4 categories of the Aston Martin Festival race at Le Mans on June 16th – the main Saturday morning support event for the 24 Hours. The Festival race event

features cars from the Aston Martin Racing stable across the board of the internationally recognised GT1, GT2, GT3 and GT4 classes.

From 2006 to 2011 we scored multiple race wins and podiums in international GT3 championships across Europe, plus two British GT titles, with the venerable Aston Martin DBRS9, and Barwell will now be taking this 6-litre V12 GT3 beauty to the famous 8.5 mile Le Sarthe track to further enrich our association with the marque. It is the Paul Whight-owned chassis (No.019) that will be competing in the 45-minute AMR Festival race, with Paul and Barwell MD, Mark Lemmer, sharing the driving duties. This is the car that we ran under the Barwell-Cadena banner for Paul during the 2010 season (claiming podiums in both British GT and Spanish GT), and then last year claimed fourth place in the Belcar Endurance Series with Barwell-Petronas drivers Jeffrey van Hooydonk and Tim Verbergt, as well as a top 10 Pro-Am finish at Spa 24 Hours during our first association with Ecurie Ecosse. The Le Mans race will thus be another significant highlight in the successful and colourful history of Chassis DBRS9-019.

In the GT4 class we are delighted to announce that we will be ramping up the international flavour of our team, by running American drivers Fred Schrader and Kevin Buckler in a 2011-spec Vantage GT4. Fred is no stranger to the Vantage GT4 as he races his own car successfully in the USA, whilst it will also be very exciting for us to have Kevin aboard – who owns highly respected US racing team, The Racers Group (TRG), which won the GT2 class of the 2002 Le Mans 24 Hours (with Kevin as one of the drivers).

Mark Lemmer: “It will be an absolute privilege to share with Paul Whight in his fantastic V12 DBRS9 for this superb event. I’ve been involved with the DBRS9 since the project was started by AMR in 2005, so this is a great way to sign off our association in style. The last time I drove around Le Mans was in Mark Finburgh’s awesome Ford GT40 a few years ago, when we scored a podium finish in the pre-’70 Le Mans Legend sportscar race, but hopefully I won’t be too rusty!”

Paul Whight: “Getting my DBRS9 out of retirement to race with Mark in front of those huge crowds at Le Mans will be great fun. This has proven to be a superb race car over the past 5 years and Barwell have always proven that they had the edge on car prep and set-up – even if they didn’t always have the drivers! I am looking forward to it immensely.”

Fred Schrader: “Wow! What an honour to be racing with such a famous marque on this historic course . My hat’s off to the Barwell boys and AMR for making this happen, and letting a couple of ‘Yanks’ come over and play on your side of the pond. I am proud to have my good buddy and fellow vintner Kevin as my co-driver. We are known stateside as the tortoise and the hare... I'll let you guess who's da hare !!”


Kevin Buckler: “Returning to Le Mans with a great friend as my co-driver and the storied Aston Marque will be something really special. We have had some amazing moments and good runs at the epic 24-hour event and this will add to it in so many ways. It will be a real honour to drive with Fred and for Barwell Motorsport and I hope we can make some history of our own. Fred and I will be ready!!”
Barwell Motorsport